Kidney Transplant Survival: Transforming Early Post-Transplant Opportunities to Long-Term Success

Substantial strides have been made in improving the short-term success after kidney transplantation. Although there has been some progress, there has not been a robust improvement with respect to long-term outcomes. However, there remain many potentially modifiable transplant-specific risks to long-term patient and graft survival. In this chapter, we detail the current state of five important short-term transplant-specific clinical events. The early post-transplant events that negatively impact long-term survival discussed in this chapter are: acute T cell mediated rejection, acute antibody mediated rejection, delayed graft function, post-transplant viral infections, and recurrent and de novo diseases after transplantation. This chapter focuses on unmet needs and outlines important goals, specific to each of the topics, that hold promise for achieving better long-term graft survival in kidney transplant patients. Consistent across all five areas are: the need for better standardization and improvement in diagnosis and testing, identification of relevant clinical surrogate markers in the design of new studies, newer immunosuppressive agents, anti-viral agents and targeted therapy for certain diseases, and innovative newer clinical trials. A multifaceted approach will further enhance long-term kidney transplant survival.